Numb

It's getting harder and harder to do anything these days. It took 45 minutes to get out of the car and come into my office. It took another 30 minutes to attempt to convince myself to get out of the car and go in the grocery store for three items. I failed at that venture and just went and got a salad from Wendy's. I literally could not bring myself to get out of the car.

I reached out to two friends through text because I couldn't use my voice either. The conversation started with, "I think I might be falling apart" and ended with a wellness check at my house (complete with hot chocolate, cookies and part of my Christmas present). I wouldn't say that I was suicidal last night. I feel as though I don't even have agency over my life to chose life or death... but that's another posting... However, I know how it feels to be so emotionally spent that IF you wanted to do something, you could.

I'm not sure how to describe it. It kinda feels like you are a zombie. You're moving and going about life but you're not really there either. You're in a haze of no emotion. Everything is spent you're living in a void. My absolute favorite show is called Orphan Black. In the opening scenes of the first season, you see a woman commit suicide by jumping in front of a moving train. This lady (Beth) briefly looks at the camera and isn't there. She's not thinking, she's not feeling, she's not mad or sad. She's not thinking about any consequences to her actions. She just knows what she needs to do and does it. She was very deliberate. She was aware of what she was doing. But she didn't have enough emotion to care or even consider those people who would need and miss her when she was gone.

I've always been told that suicide is the most selfish thing you can do. I disagree. In that moment, it oddly becomes a moment of self-preservation. I know, I know... in what planet is suicide a form of self-preservation? A person is literally ending their life. But think about it in a different way, from the viewpoint of the person committing the act. Living in a tumultuous world, where everything is going wrong and there is no end in sight to fighting, hunger, disease, and pain, this little thing is what you can control, you can turn the hurt off. This little thing can make all the pain go away and really that's the goal of suicide; to end the pain. And in that weird, twisted paradigm, suicide becomes self preservation. I believe it is the same goal as a person suffering an eating disorder or committing self mutilation; it's trying to take a hold of something tangible in a world where you have no control.

The odd thing is that I was more upset that I couldn't hurt myself rather than actually wanting to self harm. I took extra depression and anxiety medicine last night. I think I will for the next few days. I know I have about a weeks worth of medicine I can double up. Before my social work friends ask.... no, I do not have a plan. Yes, I have a self harm protocol I use to make sure I am not crossing any lines. Yes, I am using those protocols.

So thank you to the two friends who stopped everything they were doing to talk to me. I am not out of the woods, nor am I on the side of the cliff at the moment. But I'm not lost in the middle of the woods either. I still don't see the light in this dark place I'm in. But I have friends guiding me along the way.